The artist and the scientist have always been part of Jill Rogers’ makeup. Marian Quigley finds out more.

By Marian QuigleyFebruary 4, 2017

​JILL Rogers has always drawn and painted. In sixth grade, she confidently told her teacher that she was going to be an artist and a scientist. Secondary school put a halt to that confidence, however, with both her teachers and parents dispelling such foolish thoughts. Being a rebellious teenager, she refused to study and consequently didn’t do all that well at school. She excelled in music, though, and is an accomplished pianist.

However, as she observes, “The seed, once sown, continued to grow – just in a different direction”.In repeating year 11, Jill entered a painting in the Box Hill Rotary Art Show. Much to her amazement, it sold. She continued studying art at level 6, before leaving school to take up nursing. She doesn’t think she was a very good nurse, preferring to draw her patients rather than look after them. However, she gained popularity with her fellow nurses by doing their anatomical drawings as well as many caricatures of the “crabby old sisters”.

Having a young family prevented her from nursing for a while but did not put a stop to her art. While living in a remote area of the Western District, Jill won a long-distance scholarship in drawing.

She continued to paint and to enter art shows during her nursing career. In the 1970s, she participated in art displays in shopping malls together with other members of the Mornington Peninsula Art Group, sold a lot of her work and received many commissions. She produced drawings for real estate agents (before digital cameras were invented), painted murals on shop walls and designed shopping bags and brochures.

A sea change to the northern coast of NSW brought Jill to the realisation that she would like to retire from nursing (the scientist) and concentrate on discovering why she needed to paint (the artist). Here, she was employed to produce 250 caricatures of people of different nationalities in national dress for an English as Second Language publication. She completed a TAFE design course and was asked to continue on in the administration department while studying for a bachelor of visual arts degree. Some teaching at the TAFE arts and disability schools followed where she combined her nursing and art skills while curating at a Byron Bay gallery. She has also illustrated children’s books.

Jill’s ability to see the ridiculous side of life – apparent in her earlier caricatures of medical staff – comes through in her work as well as her personality. Her paintings always include some form of narrative and feature quirky elements such as the stingrays lurking beneath the water in both Minah Swansong and Tankerton Jetty. Her desire to paint landscapes was largely influenced early in her life by a friend’s father, the late Colin Heaviside, a realist watercolourist. However, Jill’s landscapes and seascapes feature a more impressionist style. Other artistic influences include the narrative elements in Rick Amor’s work; Ji Chen’s ability to simplify and the fantasy of Chris Lees’ work. Jill says she often studies the work of Chen and Lees when she feels her own paintings are becoming too ‘tight or boring’. “Beware!” she says. “My days of the caricature are not over!”

Although not really sure where her work is heading, Jill believes that artists should always be learning, rather than standing still. Consequently, she continues to experiment with different media and participate in workshops. She has worked with oils, acrylics and watercolour but tends to prefer acrylics as she finds them more user-friendly. Her main drawing medium is charcoal.

“Looking back, I can see that I did in fact combine art and science in some form but not in the way that I would have expected,” she says. “I find that many artists are musically inclined, they seem to be linked. I’m curious about the workings of the mind and the reasons behind creativity, the philosophy of it all. I think creativity (and life) is a bit like the weather – climate is what you expect and weather is what happens!”

She explains that her paintings “visually reflect on the Arcadian ambience of the coastal landscape, and the Australian identity with the land and the beach”.

Jill moved to Phillip Island in 2008 and joined the Artists Society of Phillip Island. She joined the committee and, after serving as secretary, is currently the president.

She has participated in solo and collective exhibitions over the past 50 years and has won a number of major awards in Victoria and NSW. These include the Lismore Regional Gallery Portrait Prize, the Tweed Regional Art Gallery Border Art Prize and first prizes in the San Remo Rotary and Artists’ Society of Phillip Island exhibitions. Jill has also been shortlisted in the Portia Geach Portrait Prize (Sydney) and the Annual Maritime Art Award (Melbourne).

Your profile and story of my cousin (Cuz) Jill Rogers is spot on. Jill, in her nursing career was a nurse with compassion. She was also an artist with a passion to paint and in later years she has become a successful and compassionate artist. I have some of her very early paintings which she did for my mother dating back to 1972 and they are on the walls of my home today.